ERIC ED491651: Co-Teaching in Urban School Districts to Meet the Needs of all Teachers and Learners: Implications for Teacher Education Reform

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Co-Teaching Standards in Teacher Education 1

RUNNING HEAD: Co-Teaching Standards in Teacher Education

Co-Teaching in Urban School Districts to Meet the Needs of all Teachers and Learners:
Implications for Teacher Education Reform

By
Elizabeth Cramer and Ann Nevin
College of Education
Florida International University
Miami, FL 33199

Jacqueline Thousand and Andrea Liston
College of Education
California State University San Marcos and San Diego City Schools

Paper Prepared for Presentation
American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education
January, 2006
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Abstract

A mixed methodology approach was used to address the question: what are skills,
knowledge and dispositions that co-teachers need to balance the seemingly competing
mandates of NCLB and IDEIA in order to prepare teachers for the classrooms of today and
tomorrow? Based on the results of two recent studies that focused on secondary co-teacher
teams (one conducted in Florida; one in California), the authors report both quantitative and
qualitative data obtained through the use of surveys, interviews, and observations in
California and Florida. We extrapolated information for teacher educators as to how to
prepare urban co-teachers to meet their needs and the needs of their students. Successful co-
teaching practices that were observed are described and the assessed needs of current co-
teachers are discussed for future planning of co-teaching preparation policies and practices.
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Federal legislative changes, such as those described by the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) reauthorized in 2004 (Pub. L. No. 108-
466) and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (Pub. L. No. 107–110), require
that students with increasingly diverse learning characteristics have access to and achieve
high academic performance in the general education curriculum. Changing legal
requirements and student demographics combine to point to the need for increased
collaborative planning and teaching among school personnel attempting to comply with
legal mandates. Co-teaching, defined as a classroom that is taught by both general
education and special education teachers, is a supplementary aid and service that can be
brought to general education to serve the needs of students with (and without) disabilities
through IDEIA. Such teaching requires a reconceptualization and revision for teacher
preparation.
Recent studies show the benefits of co-teaching arrangements for students,
teachers, and school organizations (Schwab Learning, 2003; Villa, Thousand, & Nevin,
2004). At the secondary level, co-teaching has been found to be effective for students
with a variety of instructional needs including learning disabilities (Rice & Zigmond,
1999; Trent, 1998); high-risk students in a social studies class (Dieker, 1998) and in a
language remediation class (Miller, Valasky, & Molloy, 1998). This research indicates
that co-teachers can structure their classes to use more effectively the research-proven
strategies required of the NCLB Act of 2001. For example, Miller et al. (1998) described
how a co-teacher team (a special educator, a general educator, and two paraprofessionals)
blended whole-class and small-group instruction, peer teaching, and small cooperative
learning groups to provide language remediation activities within the general education
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curriculum and resulted in increased literacy achievement for their students. These
outcomes encourage administrators, advocates, and even state departments of education
(Arguelles, Hughes, & Schumm, 2000) to adopt cooperative models such as co-teaching
for the effective education of students with disabilities.
Other researchers are cautious about the claims for effectiveness of collaborative
teaching methods. For example, Zigmond (2004), reporting on preliminary results of co-
teaching in inclusive science classrooms at six high schools, found little difference in the
amount of time students spent working on task, interacting in small groups, or interacting
with the teachers. Rarely have researchers or practitioners analyzed the impact of
collaborative teaching on other variables.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper to address the question: What are skills, knowledge, and
dispositions that co-teachers need to balance the seemingly competing mandates of NCLB
and IDEIA in order to prepare teachers for the classrooms of today and tomorrow?
Method
Based on the results of two studies that focused on secondary co-teacher teams
(Cramer & Nevin, in press; Villa, Thousand, Nevin, & Liston, 2005), the authors report both
quantitative and qualitative data obtained through the use of surveys, interviews, and
observations in California and Florida. We extrapolate information for teacher educators as to
how to prepare urban co-teachers to meet their needs and the needs of their students.
Successful co-teaching practices that were observed will be described and the assessed needs
of current co-teachers will be discussed for future planning of co-teaching preparation
policies and practices.
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Results of the Florida Study
The development of an evaluation instrument for co-teachers has been
systematically studied only very recently. For example, Noonan, McCormick, and Heck
(2003) developed and validated a co-teacher relationship instrument with a small sample
of early childhood educators in Hawaii and two supervisors. Villa et al. (2004) developed
the Are We Really Co-Teachers Scale which focuses on actions and behaviors in the
classroom rather than beliefs and attitudes. Given expected increases in co-teaching
teams, principals and other supervisory personnel will be required to use different
evaluation procedures and so will university student teacher supervisors when their
student teachers co-teach. The Noonan et al. Co-Teacher Relationship Scale focuses on
the attitude, beliefs, and personal characteristics of co-teachers and may be helpful in
matching potential co-teaching team members. In contrast, the Villa et al. (2004) Are We
Really Co-Teachers Scale emphasizes the teaching interactions and classroom behaviors
of co-teachers which may help administrators and other personnel design effective
professional development activities to ensure that co-teachers have the skills to
implement research-proven effective teaching practices. Cramer and Nevin (2005)
conducted a mixed method study to validate these two instruments with a convenience
sample of elementary and secondary co-teachers in Miami-Dade Public Schools.
In this paper, the data for secondary teachers only was analyzed and showed that
high school co-teachers ratings of the top five items on both scales showed similarities as
illustrated in Table 1. Specifically, two of the top five items reflected strong similarities:
flexibility in dealing with unforeseen events and sharing responsibility through
collaborating with others.
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<Insert Table 1 About Here>
Interviews and observations with a subset of co-teachers from one high school
provided confirmation that the survey items accurately reflected their actions and beliefs. The
special educator and the content teacher were interviewed separately for one co-teaching
team and for the other, the co-teachers were simultaneously interviewed. Cesar Chavez High
School [a pseudonym] includes a multicultural and ethnically diverse population of over
4,000 students in grades 9-12 in southwestern Miami-Dade County School district. About
80% of the students are of Hispanic origin, 12% are white, 5% are black, and 2% are from
asian or pacific islander heritage; 45% of the students come from families that qualify for
free and reduced lunch; 8% are classified as English Language Learners. At Cesar Chavez,
several models of support for students with disabilities are offered: consultation and
collaboration with special educators, in-class support through support facilitators and special
educators who co-teach with regular educators, and specialized instructional support in
resource or self-contained special classes. Faculty and administration have systematically
increased the percentages of inclusion of students with disabilities from 32.7% in March
2004 to 40% in November 2004.
The four co-teachers who were observed and interviewed taught various levels of
science classes. A brief summary of their characteristics is shown in Table 2.
<Insert Table 2 About Here>
Types of Students with Disabilities
Co-teachers were asked to describe the students in their classrooms. Primarily,
students with mild-to-moderate disabilities were included in co-taught classes: students
with learning disabilities, students with other health impairments (such as Attention
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Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and students with emotional handicaps, and at one high
school, students with autism were included in co-taught science classes.
Validating Survey Responses
From the classroom observations and interviews, the researchers derived common
themes and differences in order to surface any discrepancies between survey responses
and actual practice. The researchers searched for teacher responses related to flexibility
and collaboration, the two most highly rated items on both surveys.
Evidence of flexibility. One special education co-teacher said, “What co-teaching
means to me is the ability to be flexible when the lesson needs to be adjusted. I have
learned so much, in fact, the students often see me taking notes.” Furthermore, when
asked to describe the teaching strategies that co-teachers use, responses across all
secondary interviewees included “ESL strategies,” hands-on activities, guided notes,
graphic organizers, cooperative learning groups, real life experience, and web based
learning.
Another example of flexibility shows up in the way teachers accommodated
each other’s schedules in deciding what to teach. This is an important accommodation for
special educators who also had responsibilities for teaching students in resource rooms
for part of the day, or general educators who were away for a workshop. As another
special educator stated:
We jump into one another’s lessons. We share the planning of the lessons. If I’m
having a busy week because of testing (like this week has been IEP testing), my
partner is aware of it and knows I have no other choice. And I’ll do the same. The
majority of the time we do it together.
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A third example of flexibility is the way that co-teachers often made room for
teachers’ preferences and strengths regarding teaching specific content. One high school
teacher noted:
[When we first meet with our co-teachers at this high school] we explained
that he or she is a curriculum or content specialist and that the special
educator is the strategy specialist. It’s a matter of organizing, a matter of
knowing the needs according to their disabilities, and individualized
approach.
Another high school special educator explained how she used her versatility, “I call
myself the ‘rubber-band’ because I really have to go into classrooms and formulate my
teaching style to another’s teaching style.”
Evidence of collaboration. One of the science co-teacher teams that were
interviewed described how they used a process to come to an agreement about how
to teach a lesson that required the students to discuss ethical issues in genetic
engineering. They listed their ideas, brainstormed the advantages and disadvantages
of each, and arrived at an activity that could be implemented in the amount of time
they had for the class session. As the general educator partner explained, “I don’t
know that we disagree a lot! We might have two different ideas. We don’t get much
choice about what content to teach because of the scope and sequence.”
Collaboration was also evident in the level of understanding for each other
that the co-teachers developed over time. One general educationcco-teacher
explained: “Sometimes it’s just non-verbal language. You get to know each other
so well, you can pretty much read each other’s mind after a while.”
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A special education co-teacher commented:
We DO learn from each other and when I notice that my partner is
teaching something In a certain way, and I think I can do it too, then I’ve
benefited. At different times, I’m leading the lesson and at other times my
partner is leading the activity at that moment. We do plan together; we
meet with the other biology teachers; so I think all of that is part of being
a co-teacher.”
A general education co-teacher illustrated how this collaboration has carried over
to the students.
“Yes! I guess we’ve really set it up for our students to be co-teachers with
us. Now they are preparing to teach about their special projects so that
everyone in the class will know what they’ve discovered. They are actually
doing what they have seen us co-teachers do…for example, making sure to
have some hands-on activity, some visuals like a power point slide, and so
on.”
Impact on Students with Disabilities. A general education co-teacher captured the
impact that co-teaching has had on her students when she shared:
I’m co-teaching with an ESE teacher who wants her students with autism
to experience social integration. What I see is that both sets of students
are benefiting. For example, the students with autism are actually learning
some science that they wouldn’t ordinarily learn! And their peers are
having their original beliefs about autism changed dramatically. They no
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longer expect what they thought would be ‘retarded’ behavior and are
often surprised at what the students with autism contribute to class.”
A conversation between a general and special educator reveal both of their
perspectives about the impact on students:
[Co-Teacher #1] We’ve seen such growth for the students. For example, one
of the ESE students was really shy about coming in to the inclusion class. He
would stand outside the door looking in during the first few days of class. Now
he just comes in and starts working.
[Co-Teacher #2] I want to add that what I’ve seen is how the inclusion and
co-teaching has benefited all the students. We have so many low-level
learners. They seem to enjoy and acquire so much more with the hands-on
activities, the attention they can get from each of us, and what I think of as
‘double teaching.’ If I’m teaching something a certain way, my co-teacher can
explain it and show it in a different way and connect with the kids that I didn’t
reach.
[Co-Teacher #1] We’ve asked the students how they feel about having 2
teachers. They report they like it. When the parents were given an option, no
parents refused to have their student attend the co-taught class!
Summary
In summary, the interviews seemed to corroborate the most highly rated items on
flexibility and collaboration in the survey ratings. Similar to Keefe and Moore (2004),
teachers in this study reported positive student outcomes from co-teaching as well as